It is well known in the art to analyze a diet of a mammal for typical macronutrients, such as carbohydrates, fiber, fat, protein, major vitamins and minerals. In fact, there is a well developed field of nutrition which seeks to employ medical and public health principles to determine an "optimal" diet. Further, total parenteral nutrition is known, wherein foods are determined and administered to a patient, often in a controlled environment. Infant formulas are also a known area of economic and dietary optimization based on public health and medical considerations.
Multivitamins are known, wherein a mixture of vitamins, minerals and cofactors are provided in a convenient dosage form. The levels of components are generally selected to be a significant portion of a recommended daily allowance (RDA) and up to about ten times the RDA. These multivitamins, however, are available in limited varieties, e.g., children's, women's, men's, and senior citizen's.
Of particular import in these many known systems is that these systems are not open to conjectural nutritional effects of components. Thus, if the effect of a component is not specifically known, these systems have no way to scientifically analyze its inclusion in a proposed optimized diet.
A known system, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,478,989, incorporated herein by reference, provides a computerized shopping cart for a supermarket which includes a bar code scanner, allowing typical UPC codes on food packaging to be read. A database of information about the food item may then be recalled, which may include labeling information. The consumer inputs personal information, and the retrieved information is presented in relation to the personal information of the consumer. This system, however, does not include an economic model, and does not relate to nutritional supplements for which no medical benefits are claimed. Further, this system does not make proposals, but rather returns processed information based on an input representing an item and the personal information.